


Dreaming Platinum

by sigmalied



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 10:51:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11273946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigmalied/pseuds/sigmalied
Summary: Tevos gives Aria an ultimatum. Her answer might have been easy and obvious if Aria could deny herself something she wants.





	Dreaming Platinum

**Author's Note:**

> Another experiment, a weird one, and sort of high-risk. Basically, I wanted to see if I could pull it off. I think it ended up being something of a character study. 
> 
> Loosely affiliated with the GBTQ timeline, as in based on but not necessarily part of, because Dianth may or may not exist, Anthya isn't mentioned, etc. It's as if GBTQ ended and this picks up the story again. Set way in the future, like, post-everything.

“I don’t abide ultimatums.”

“Then I suppose you will no longer abide me.”

So, this was to be the culmination of over two hundred years. A turbulent history, exciting and divergent and scarcely predictable, to terminate at the point of clear dichotomy, as if all could be summarized, abbreviated, into a single action. She could hardly believe it. She regularly negotiated with the shrewdest smugglers and vilest pirates to have ever crawled out of the twisted Terminus space debris fields, and even their demands were magnitudes more flexible than those posed by the other matriarch who stepped away from her now, heels clicking briskly against the floors until they attenuated with growing distance. 

No one did this to her. No one forced her hand like this, made a fool of her for thinking that she could saunter into her week of vacation and simply enjoy herself without having to face an incredible, life-altering decision. Her hands almost trembled. Tevos could have backhanded her and she would have felt less indignity. 

“You want an answer this _moment?”_ she asked incredulously, after pursuing her to the base of the stairs which they began to ascend. “That’s fucking insane. You’re insane.”

At the top, Tevos paused to face her. Her expression was hard, yet not without emotion. She did not favor their situation either, but it was apparently quite necessary. “Perhaps not at this moment,” she conceded. “But I want one in the very near future.” Her gaze tore away from Aria’s as she resumed her path toward her home office. 

Aria continued to follow the figure clad in a severe dark dress with a lustrous silver clasp at the base of her neck, shining when they passed the luminous windows. Severe as her tone. 

“Tevos,” she said to her back as it disappeared around a hall corner. “Tevos, you know what I am and what I will and will not do.” Increasing the speed of her steps brought Tevos promptly back within her sight. “So what’s even the point of asking me to make this choice if there isn’t room for debate? You want something. Tell me what it is and we’ll talk.”

“I believe I’ve made my desires quite clear,” Tevos replied. She had reached the door of her office, passing through its frame to approach her shelves of well-preserved printed books. “It is not my intention to mislead you or withhold any information from you. What I’ve said is precisely what I meant.”

“It’s never enough for you, is it?” 

“Excuse me?”

Aria glared. “No matter what I do or what I say, you’re just never content, are you? If I say yes this time, how will you up the ante in the future? What issue will it be next time? Infidelity? Cohabitation? Just where do you plan to stop, Tevos?”

“What?” Tevos issued her an authentic look of confusion. The book she was holding lied open in her hands, forgotten for the time being. “I’m not asking you for anything beyond what I said.”

“Not today, at least.” Aria drew closer, watching wary green eyes follow her every step. She took the book from her hands, shut it, and returned it to its previous slot in the shelf before reuniting her stare with Tevos’s. “I can’t do this for you,” she said. Her statement was quiet, but it carried a firm sense of finality, enhanced by how she folded her arms in front of her middle and raised her brow, expecting Tevos to yield once Aria portrayed herself as immovable.

But Tevos did not yield. Not this time. Her gaze quivered against Aria's while she searched for words, obviously hurting when she found them. “Then you’ve made your decision.” Turning away, she retrieved her book once more, lightly brushed past Aria as she stepped around her, and left the room.

* * *

She didn’t kick her out. Tevos was too decent, hospitable, and reasonable to succumb to vindictive impulses. Consequently, Aria spent much time brooding on a couch in the upstairs lounge. She rested her head on one armrest with her legs indulgently crossed and folded over the other while she skimmed her messages. 

Everyone wanted something from her. Deals, favors, special arrangements, often with astronomical sums of credits attached to them. Which helped tempt her, of course, but on what occasions do the wide seas of Thessia thirst for rain? Credits meant something to her as a youth. Credits were deified, deemed as essential to life as blood. But long years of success had abstracted them. Forced them back into what they were: liquidity, tokens to be traded around for goods and services. Aria found herself solely caring for what she had to give for them, or what she would receive for them. Prices were variable and relatively unimportant, because more credits would replenish her accounts in time. 

The galaxy was changing. For her and for everyone else. She definitely had more on her plate now than she expected to have several centuries ago. All the largest criminal organizations on Omega under her thumb. Mutual understandings with galactic superpowers. Mountains of refined eezo and drugs. More guns and ships at her disposal than she knew what to do with. A burgeoning folder on her omni-tool exclusively dedicated to formal procreational requests. Private cellars stocked with enough fine wine and liquor to keep an entire krogan battalion drunk out of their minds for months. Wardrobes housing the most revered and expensive designer brands in the galaxy. Glamorous dancers and strapping enforcers with fiery eyes ready to satisfy her at a whim. Was there anything in the universe that she had not obtained? What else could possibly lie just out of reach, challenging her to extend herself even further? 

The answer riled her, brought a bitter phantom taste to her mouth. 

“I didn’t plan to throw this on you so suddenly.” Tevos’s words from their last conversation echoed in her skull like scraping metal. “But I won’t put my life on hold for you. I’m getting old, Aria. It’s time.”

At the recent memory, the phantom bitterness morphed into the taste of perfume, another memory of all those times her lips had sealed around the perfect spot on a throat. Pungent chemicals on her tongue and exquisite flowers in her nose as she drew away from skin bruising violet. Hands leaving fistfuls of flesh and fabric behind to pin slender wrists to the mattress as she filled their heads with her own mental flexing. Mating through promise and demonstration, through vain glimpses of herself. How she bursted and burned like a supernova of aggressive biotic might, tearing down the very firmament in a clamorous shatter and a hail of glassy stars. And then the thick silent weight of her mind would roughly bear down, pressing out short, fragile breaths from parted lips, pained and blissful, and it would be over without her fingers ever delving past a waistband. 

“You can’t honestly expect me to believe you thought this over,” Aria had scoffed. “The matriarchy would eat you alive.”

“I’m not their councilor anymore. And they wouldn’t be able to stomach me if they tried.”

She had been genuinely baffled. “This is really what you want?”

“Why is that difficult to believe? The negative reactions of others have never inhibited _your_ desires."

Except Omega was a long way off right now, and Aria only received criticism from rivals or malcontents in matters of money and war, which this was not. Assuming it didn’t _become_ one down the line.

She placed a call to her right-hand lieutenant, whose eighty years of service to her syndicate had made her worthy of admittance into her organization’s highest echelons. The line rang a dull, flat tone for several seconds as Aria awaited her response.

“Ma’am?” came the dutiful greeting, immediately prepared for orders or information.

“Lieutenant,” Aria replied. She was calm, but seemed to linger on the edge of something terrible. “I have a question for you.”

“Of course, Aria.”

“What am I to Omega?”

“You’re our leader,” said the lieutenant, sounding confused by what Aria had asked. She reliably obliged her nonetheless. “We’ll gladly follow you to the very end if need be. We look at you and we see Omega’s potential succinctly embodied. All of your qualities have forged us into a major power in recent years. Your keen strategic insight, your ability as a negotiator or intimidator, your sense for business and profit, your leveled and forceful judgement… People tread lightly around us now. People respect us. Omega just wouldn’t be the same without you.” 

Aria always received flattery well, but it wasn’t what she was specifically after. “What actions can you imagine that would endanger your confidence in me?” She pensively unrolled the black cuff of her dress shirt sleeve, monitoring her own idle motions with intense, narrowed blue eyes.

“I… Well, I guess they would entail nothing short of betrayal. If you turned your back on everything you stand for.”

“And what do I stand for?” she absently persisted, nearly forgetting she stood for anything besides plain hedonism. 

“For self-determination. For independence, to be chained by no oppressive regulations that would obstruct our ability to live and do as we please.”

“Interesting.” Aria rolled her sleeve back into its previous state and lifted her gaze to a sleek floor lamp, tall and thin with a white marbled shade and rimmed in gold. 

* * *

Aria never slept alone when she did not prefer to. But the arrangement was only temporary, she assured herself as her eyes scanned the deep blue ceiling, making her feel as if she were at the bottom of a stormy ocean, gradually suffocating as she sank into sediment. 

She only needed to organize her thoughts, to sort her conflicting ideas into the proper filing cabinets before neatly laying everything out for analysis.

_Self-determination._

The lieutenant’s reaffirmation of Aria’s dearest personal policies was at the central podium of her mind, speaking louder than all other dictums vying for her attention. _I do what I want_ , it insisted. _Nothing denies me what I want. Not convention. Not insecurity. Not even pride._

And certainly not herself. 

"There are many people in this galaxy, Aria."

Tevos's words were in her head again. Aria could perfectly recall her elocution and accent, smooth as silk or as sharp as needles when she wielded her voice so.

"I understand if you do not wish to do this for me. But you must also understand and accept that there are other people who might."

When she closed her eyes out of the exhaustion she had wrought herself, Aria blearily dreamed of great arms of algae tangling around her, initially causing her distress. A meager source of light spun about her head, directionless. It was only when she relaxed that she discovered in her captor an intrinsic buoyancy.

* * *

Breakfast was also a solitary event. Aria ate alone on the deck, strangled by the fresh air and annoyed to her limits by the heathy garden sprawling out beneath her, each leaf mockingly cheerful and optimistic. Not for a moment discouraged by the encroaching, mild winter of the paralian climate.

In the sailing age, Tevos had once told her, Prya Liros razed eleven townships and had continued her campaign through the Armali provisional defenses when she finally decided to meet with the city-state’s matriarchy for negotiation. Five days later, she had several followers piling gifts on the doorstep of the matriarch who presided over the negotiation, claiming she was enchanted and wished to bond with her. They did after a brief period of courtship, and Liros’s forces became protectors and trained the next generation of huntresses.

An age later, between what was now the inseparable neighbors Serrice and Vesperia, conflict erupted over the issue of diverting an essential water channel that wound through both territories. After a month of guerrilla fighting, peace was established when the channel was diverted significantly downstream from Serrice’s original intent, moving the location of their future agriculture. Vesperia would experience no unmanageable seasonal flooding as a result. The two members from each state’s representative circle who had proposed the compromise bonded one year after making amends for burning down each other’s family houses. 

By the end of their long lives they had birthed thirty-two children together, Tevos had said. _Thirty-two_.

At the time, Aria didn’t understand why the hell any of it mattered, or why Tevos was wasting her time with useless anecdotes about people who were long dead. 

Now she knew why.

* * *

It was her spite that did it. And if not, it was undeniably some other permutation of defiance or protest. No matter the cause, the instant she finished eavesdropping on Tevos’s disturbingly friendly call as she paced beneath Aria’s discreet perch in the second floor seating alcove, blood had boiled beyond the point of possible reconsideration.

Within five minutes Aria had her shoes on and was departing through the front door, thrusting herself into relative darkness. Sundown had been hours ago. While striding down the sloped driveway, she reached into her pockets for a cigarette, fingers perceptibly shaking. She brought it to her frowning lips and lit it, then paused to view the city below the hill and beyond the community parks, contemplating what she was about to do in an agitated flurry of thought. 

Aria could see the headlines now, superimposed on the glittering night skyline. Garish smears and accusations buzzing in bold orange and yellow, immolating Tevos’s reputation in the social pyrotechnics show of the century. As for Aria’s fare, the smarter demographic of Omega would probably find the whole ordeal exciting; a throwback to medieval schemes where clever suitors intermingled with persons of note to siphon away wealth, power, and state intelligence. But she could not expect the same from every denizen, particularly the tiny, violent minds who could not accomodate a gray zone between friend and foe.

Bored during the car ride, she picked at the seat and thought of her. All those times, years ago, when she used to kiss her in her Citadel office. Kissed her like someone who meant it. Stealing tastes with her tongue, drinking sighs and sounds, biting into a soft bottom lip. Fondling that criminally high collar when she tried to reach her neck from her chin. Then she’d pull away and watch her absently follow, fingers still wrapped around her stylus. Whispered heated promises against the side of her crest, things that made the councilor furiously blush and nearly snap that stylus in two, promises to make sure her mind was set on her for hours until they could rendezvous in private.

She thought about the drinking nights. Several glasses would have them laughing, flirting, talking. Talking for _hours_ , strewn across the furniture in a haphazard layer of limbs as barriers dissolved and the history of long eventful lives clumsily unfurled. Smooth hands beneath her shirt, stroking and massaging her skin. Words she had only ever read in books playing fluidly on the lips touching hers, used as descriptors for the kind compliments she paid her. Compliments, complaints, and vows.  

“You are always welcome in my house, Aria.” Tevos’s melancholy voice from the previous day welled up from her recollection like an oozing wound. “You are always in my heart. But… no longer in my bed. For our best interests.”

There was a swell between her ribs. Anxiety rising like a horrible thermal. She had always hated this feeling, the one that could fill her with blooming satisfaction and excitement just as quickly as it could fill her with dread. Normally she would have convinced herself to discard any ambivalent tendencies, disdaining the idea that her own emotions could betray her so abruptly and severely. Stupidly, she hadn't. She had decided she was fond enough of the good days to tolerate the occasional bad ones. 

Now she was paying for it. Aria felt as though she could vomit.

By the time she arrived at her destination, it was late. Only one other customer was pondering over the glass display cases that sparkled like crystal beneath the surreal white ceiling lights. According to the asari working the floor, the store was due to close in half an hour. She devoted her full attention to Aria once she heard her intention to make a purchase, and led her to the appropriate counter. 

“All right,” said the salesperson. She tapped a few icons on her datapad to access a form. “Let’s start with the cord material. We carry all sorts: silver, palladium, titanium—”

“Platinum.”

The other asari highlighted the corresponding options before proceeding to the next question. “Cord braid type.” She oriented the datapad in Aria’s direction, showing her the various patterns the fine metal could be woven into. “Unpressed, if you like the braid look? Or pressed, to soften the obvious patterning?”

“That one, pressed.” She designated an elegant weave of three flattened main cords colliding into one with uniform width.

“Now… size.”

Aria gave her the correct dimensions. 

“Lastly, the interior inscription. If any. You can enter it on this line here and choose the font.”

Left with the datapad and an empty category she hadn’t given any prior thought, Aria shut her eyes and expelled a frustrated exhale. Did it even need an inscription? No one besides Tevos would ever see it. Although, that may have been the _point_ , and if she neglected to write something adequately sentimental, the cut corner could possibly impact her odds of acceptance. Deathly allergic to rejection, Aria raced through her conscience in search of tolerable romantic poeticism. 

Completing the form for the salesperson brought her immense relief. She submitted it and searched the store’s virtual catalogue for stock, found one on hand with Aria’s specifications, and retrieved the item from a locked drawer before placing it in an affiliated machine for inscribing. While they waited, she had Aria complete a payment information form. 

The glinting bracelet was gently placed in the circular groove of the velvet lining a box. After presenting it to Aria, the salesperson smiled at her and bid her a good night, trying her best not to stare with developing recognition. Soon Aria was in the car again, leaning to her side with her temple pressed against the window, watching the city smear into bright colors. She held the box with both hands in her lap, and her queasiness had returned in tall waves of destabilizing surf.

She thought about her again. The telling neutrality she maintained when infuriated. The way she folded her arms in contempt and paced. How she could ignore her indefinitely, driving Aria mad. 

This was going to kill her. She was sure of it. Bullets and biotics couldn’t, at least thus far. Ancient war machines from dark space hadn’t. But this… _this_ was going to be the end of her.

Not the harsh spotlight nor the questions. Aria did as she pleased and everyone knew better than to challenge her reasoning. Her subordinates would all fall in line sooner or later, sensing an adept plan or a long-term investment behind her actions, even when one didn’t precisely exist. They weren’t her concern. 

Her concern was Tevos. Claiming that _this_ was what she wanted was just ambiguous enough for suspicion to burrow its way into Aria’s heart, making her consider Tevos’s ultimatum being nothing more than her diplomatic mode of saying goodbye, disguised as a choice to console Aria. How could she have ever anticipated Aria taking this route?

The longer she dwelled on it, the more she convinced herself it was true, and her first and only time attempting this out of a thousand years of life would be met with resounding failure and humiliation. But when she asked herself to remember the last time she retreated in fear of failure, her nerves steeled with earned arrogance, for she could not. 

* * *

The air was cold. Late autumn tauntingly kissed her face as she returned to the house in the dead of night; shoes tapping against the pavement all the way, her purchase curled up protectively in one hand. She felt herself in her own body, and accordingly celebrated herself. The violence and pleasure of her life. The widespread fear, love, and respect she commanded. The tremendous power her stature effaced and controlled, how she remarkably prevented her own flesh from fissuring each time she unleashed it. 

Was it not suitable for her to mate well? That she not limit herself to denial, or to those who did not meet her standards, and rather flaunt her access to the most untouchable candidates alive? Undeniably, this was something she _did not_   _have_ , which was beyond rare. Just plying and molding the idea in her head possessed her with the insatiable drive to obtain it, pushing her beyond any lingering doubt, through the door and to the lightless kitchen. There she sought the rum she brought with her but abandoned in her outrage. She freed it from a cabinet, brusquely opened it, wrapped her fingers around its neck, and downed a burning swig for spare confidence. It heated her veins with liquid empowerment, encouraging her selfish notion of acquiring and keeping a mate of her caliber, permanently, all to herself.

She felt as if she were about to lay siege in the absence of her mercenary army, the loyal thousands she had raised from nothing. She was all alone against the blistering front lines, but when the spoils came at the end, she would never have to share them. 

Aria straightened her collar, opened the door, and flicked on the lights.

The mass beneath the bedsheets remained motionless. Abandoning all manners in favor of her urgent business, Aria disturbed the peace by announcing, “I need to talk to you.”

With a small jolt of surprise Tevos was roused from her sleep. She turned over to peer at her, disoriented and alarmed. “Aria? What in the… What’s going on? Is everything all right?” 

“I said I need to talk to you,” Aria repeated. She stepped closer, toward the bedside.

“What? Do you have any idea what time it is…?” Sitting upright, Tevos rubbed her face and forehead with a hand, but focused completely on Aria once she stood before her—a wall of dark clothes, scented faintly by smoke, with determination flaring in her irises. It was only when Aria seated herself on the bed and leaned in that Tevos objected, thinking it an advance. “Aria, please. We agreed—“

“Listen to me,” Aria firmly stopped her. “I made my decision.” 

Held in secret against Aria’s leg was the gift, fingers closed around the case to hide the lettering’s delicate shine. She peered at Tevos, moved uncomfortably in the depths of her by how much older she looked now than on the day they first met. Her age was vastly in her eyes. Their green had dulled over decades of exhaustion and horror, but still they retained an adamant lucidity, honed intelligence and wisdom. Austere in their current expression, yet nevertheless patient to see how Aria would try to bend and evade the strict terms of her final offer. Destined to fail, but she always worth her time. Aria presented an empty hand, inviting Tevos to take it. 

She looked at her with bewilderment, unable to process what Aria might be asking her. Aria elaborated physically, claiming her hand in her own before interlocking their fingers. “I shouldn’t need to remind you. I’m good at knowing what I want.” With her free hand Aria maneuvered the box. “And I know how to get what I want just as well."

The gleam of the bracelet drifted into Tevos’s view. “Is… Is that…?” She shook her head in disbelief. “This… this is a joke. You’re joking. You have to be.”

Aria frowned. “Do you want it or not?” She watched impatiently as Tevos lifted her free hand to press it against the front of her robed chest. 

“I think I’m feeling faint…”

“Don’t. I don’t want to wait hours for a yes or no." Aria was preemptively fatigued by the very idea. "If you’re planning on saying no anyway, at least do me the courtesy of doing it now so I can tell you why you’re wrong for saying it.” She felt Tevos's fingernails pressing into her skin as her grip tightened. 

“So it’s _not_ a joke?”

“Well I'm not laughing, am I?"

Tevos’s hand felt clammy, even against the minor chill Aria’s flesh still carried from outside. She let Aria put it on her, trembling in her grasp as the small clasp was fastened with a near-inaudible click. Aria, by no means given to outward emotion, competed with the stunning bracelet for Tevos’s gaze. Sternly searching for it and holding it wherever she could, fixating on the tears when they arrived. 

“I thought you never wanted to do this." Tevos tried to keep her voice from wavering.

“I didn’t want to because I never saw the point. It's nonsense.” 

“But you see a point now? Why?”

Aria deflected the question by merely stating, “You know, a while ago you said you didn’t want to do this either.”

Patently affected by her remark, Tevos grew pensive for a while. “I... I think I only said that because I thought I'd never be crazy enough to do it."

"Yet here you are."

"Yet here I am," she agreed, wiping away a few tears not shed in sorrow, but in joy. 

* * *

It felt like an eternity since the last time she had been inside her head.

She could feel how much Tevos had missed having her in her bed, how it had pained her to impose that restriction on them. She could feel how relieved and glad she was to have her again, now forever without doubt. For that time Aria shared her chest as well as her difficulty with breathing, having so many thoughts darting across her mind like inescapable noise. Recollections of plots and favors, delicate diplomacy, the aching distance that separated them, of progeny, of favorite vintners they had shared with each other, of blood, grief, _delight_. Sympathizing with the overwhelming cascade that buried Tevos, Aria broke the seal of their lips to say to her, softly and surely, "Relax."

It was remarkable that Aria could relax herself. Especially when it occurred to her that she was not simply bedding Tevos anymore, but a _mate_. A title bestowed to one selected from innumerable many, to hold stalwart against all other minor dalliances.

Aria judged herself correct. It _was_ something she did not have before, somehow, in her millennium-long quest to greedily have and experience everything that could be feasibly obtained. And now that she had _this_ , Aria felt inexplicably content with her personal wealth. As if a new vacancy in her stormy soul had been opened and immediately filled.

It had been that way since the moment the bracelet closed around Tevos’s wrist, when Aria was overcome by an intoxicating sense of vigor. She felt powerful, libidinous, and coveted. It was a biological or social onset of personal potency, as though successfully bonding awarded her new and higher renown from expanding the individual unit of the self. She was herself, but she was also the matriarch beneath her. Figuratively in their ability to overlap assets, and literally when they consummated and reaffirmed. 

Having Tevos as a passenger to such thoughts before she could make sense of them brought a velvety hum of pleasure to her lips, liking the way Tevos was inclined to observe the complex machinery of Aria's mind without intervention. She wanted to understand. To immerse herself in the rawness of her, unfiltered by careful speech and calculated action; things only to be beheld by such an individual who could decorate her wrist.

Aria donated to their union a flood of vanity and desire to assure Tevos of her quality, that she had bonded impossibly well and could do no better. She vaunted herself, promising nothing but strength and skill and experience as she assertively held her. The word _mate_  remained suspended in her mind's vocabulary where it was examined and manipulated like clay, kneaded to her liking until the gravity of it, the virile  _status_ of it, aroused her.

 _When was the last time you made love to someone, Aria?_ she heard in her head, and cunningly replied, _Sweetheart, every time we’ve been together I’ve made love to you_ , which earned her a pang of amusement. 

Further conversation was sparse. She filled her with biotics and warm possessiveness and measured her choice by the keening sounds she made, by the number of times she heard her name or felt her nails painting scattered lines on her shoulders. And when she heard a fragile _slower_ rebounding in her skull, Aria heeded and savored it.

Tevos reminded her of everything she had not forgotten. How to angle her hips just right, how to touch and squeeze her breasts and where to leave marks from her teeth and lips. How to kiss her after she came. She had only to learn how to kiss the wrist that held her promise.

* * *

Aria didn’t sleep.

The last few days, and especially the last few hours, had felt like a dream. Contrived in a fever-stricken daze or at the mercy of another’s mind on the blurry eve of rest. 

Tevos hadn’t been sleeping either. Though she lied still, Aria noticed her furtive glances and readjustments. Earlier she had her arms wrapped around Aria’s neck, kissing her lips in fulfillment, and Aria had relished the attention, knowing she would be the sole recipient of it and never the vapid academics or litigators on her private contact list. She could hardly wait to make Tevos forget all about them. 

A hand grasped hers, folding into it gently beneath the sheets. She could feel the thin band of platinum, virtually flush with its owner’s skin; a perfect fit for the circumference of the wrist it bound. She brushed the cool metal with her fingertips and heard her name on a whisper. 

“I didn’t think you would do this for me. I thought I was saying goodbye.”

Aria faced her. “Would that have been preferable?”

“No,” sighed Tevos. “I’m just… out of breath. I’m thinking about when we met. As soon as I was acquainted with you, I wished to be unacquainted. But then I saw something in you. Something I had never seen before, something I didn’t understand. I kissed you and it burned. I remembered you when I didn’t mean to.” She paused. “And now you’re my bondmate. Aren’t you?” An odd twinge of doubt edged her voice, perhaps worried that Aria's thoughts during intimacy were impermanent.

She nodded, her instinctual aversion for the word at a minimum. Again her fingertips played along the band as her mind wandered aimlessly, stumbling over thoughts of paperwork and principle. Whether they would make this an official or private affair. Knowing Tevos, she would want to file it on public record, ensuring the preservation of reality against the distortion of time and memory. If the sneering matriarchy no longer discouraged her, Aria couldn’t conceive anything else that might. 

Aria wondered if she wanted a ceremony; yet another item of symbolic nonsense that she would nonetheless partake in if requested. She would be loath to see herself fail to provide. Tevos would be too tangled up in Aria’s personal pride by then for her to refuse and risk broadcasting negligence, or even worse, an impotent lack of confidence in her actions. Aria would not disservice her reputation in that manner.

Tevos’s family would attend, if no one else. Perhaps a few long-lived dignitaries from her Council days, or scarce members of the matriarchy who subscribed to her philosophy that _political bonding_ helped preserve stability, not threaten it. A priestess would be there to burn incense, administer vows, and tie their wrists together with a violet ribbon. There would be drinks and food. Nothing to fear, nothing at all. 

Not like the looming paranoia she harbored toward the idea of sleep. Maybe this really was a dream, and if she shut her eyes she would wake up elsewhere. Maybe she was presently tossing and turning beneath the lonely sheets of the guest bedroom and the bracelet's luxurious platinum was vanishing as if dissolved in acid, or she had furiously downed the entire bottle of rum in her indecision and now lay blacked out on the staircase, never having completed her climb to Tevos’s bedside. 

Dismissing the corrosive thought, Aria glanced up to meet Tevos’s eyes. She had noticed her fondling the bracelet. It cast an ethereal pale glint in the dim light, like fresh snow. “There’s something written on the underside,” Aria quietly informed her. “Did you notice?”

“No, I didn’t realize.” Tevos tried to unclasp it, but Aria stopped her.

“Who said you were allowed to take it off?”

“Then I’ll just take it off when you’re not looking.” Tevos reached forward to smooth her hand over Aria’s cheek. She sighed when Aria brought her other hand to her lips and kissed the tender spot on Tevos’s inner wrist, just beneath the band; a place she had excessively revisited to the point of bruising. “I’ll know soon.”

Aria suggestively kissed the center of her palm in time to hear Tevos ask her, “What sort do you want?”

A low hum rose from her throat as she considered. “Something modern. Practical.” Her lips feathered against fingertips that willingly offered themselves for attention. “Titanium. Less likely to break.”


End file.
